Fruition of the week
Once upon a time, baseball stadiums were named after fine, upstanding, hard-working American millionaires who just happened to own baseball teams.

Then came a time when baseball stadiums were named after the kind of beverage you could count on Babe Ruth, Old Hoss Radbourne and the Gashouse Gang could rally behind -- namely, beverages with suds and hops and that golden orange glow.

But now, we have a new, more nutritious but eminently more disturbing trend sweeping our sport. Now -- and how would we ever explain this to the Bambino -- we have baseball stadiums named after juice companies.

When the Astros sold the naming rights of Don't Call It Enron Field to Minute Maid last week, it meant we now had almost as many ballparks named after juice companies (Minute Maid and Tropicana) as beer companies (Busch, Miller, Coors).

"And I bet some of those old-timers would be rolling over in their graves," Astros broadcast-witticist Jim Deshaies told Wild Pitches, "at the thought of having more ballparks named after a juice than a beer."

But we need to think about this naming craze in a more constructive fashion, friends. Adding Minute Maid to the ballpark juice roster provides some real opportunities for all of us. And by that we mean: to run every juice/fruit pun ever devised completely into the ground.

"We could promote a home-and-home series with the Devil Rays," Deshaies said. "The Juice-off."

Or we could rework that old knock-knock joke about the banana to go like this:

Knock-knock.
Who's there?
Enron.
Enron who?

Knock knock.
Who's there?
Enron.
Enron who?

Knock knock.
Who's there?
Orange.
Orange who?
Orange you glad I didn't say Enron?

Eh, try it on your 5-year-old. Or, Deshaies suggested, we could provide a real public service to all of you punsters out there -- by giving you an opportunity to propose all the people on earth who absolutely have to be invited now to Minute Maid Field for assorted Astros endeavors.

"Juice Newton could sing the National Anthem," Deshaies proposed. "I'll throw that out there."

That, of course, is if Chuck Berry isn't available. The Astros also would be just about required to hire Chet Lemon, Damon Berryhill and Sean Berry for their coaching staff -- since Darryl Strawberry is pretty much un-hireable at the moment.

We thought about bringing in O.J. to host Repossessed Heisman Trophy Day at the ballpark. But come to think of it, that's not a very fruitful idea.

So allllll righty then. You get the idea. And here are your suggestions on who to invite to the ballpark.

Pedro mugger of the week
Until last week, it's a good bet that most of you out there whose name isn't Santiago had never heard of just-called-up Tigers shortstop Ramon Santiago. Then he stepped up to the plate against Pedro Martinez last Monday and changed everything.

In just his second game as a leadoff man, Santiago became the first player since July 28, 2000 (Terrence Long) to lead off a game with a home run against the great Pedro.

"I've never had a chance to meet him," Martinez said afterward of his fellow Dominican. "He's too young. He's not my era. I'm an old goat."

But old and young goats alike would have had trouble envisioning what Santiago kicked off with that home run.

The next hitter, Damion Easley, also homered. It was the first time the first two hitters of any game had ever gone deep on Pedro -- and, in fact, the first time he'd ever allowed back-to-back home runs at any point to two American League players.

But even that wasn't the end of all this. Later in the game, Santiago -- who had hit seven homers in his entire minor-league career -- homered again, off Tim Wakefield.

"I looked at Felipe (Alou, the Tigers' bench coach)," Tigers manager Luis Pujols told Booth Newspapers' Danny Knobler, "and said, 'All those people in the sports books in the Dominican are broke tonight.' "

Well, we hope they rode the hot hand, because the next night, Santiago led off a second straight game with a home run, this time off John Burkett. He thus joined Lou Whitaker (1983) and Dick McAuliffe (1969) as the only Tigers ever to lead off back-to-back games with homers.

But not everything about that second leadoff homer was good. Turned out the baseball landed in the Tigers bullpen, right on top of their good-luck charm -- an authentic Matt Anderson bobblehead doll which had been warming up feverishly for a couple of weeks. Naturally, panic ensued.

"They called the dugout," Pujols reported, "and asked for a trainer."

"He (the bobblehead -- not Santiago) got a little ice after the game," bullpen coach Todd Maulding told Knobler. "He's OK."

Or maybe not. What happened after the beaning of the bobblehead? The Tigers lost their next six in a row.

Unit-izer of the week
Turns out it was a big week for guys hitting their first career homers off living legends. From the same sport that brought you Ramon Santiago, we present ...

Marcus Thames.

It's supposed to be a terrifying experience to make your big-league debut against the gigundous presence of Randy Johnson. In fact, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, only four previous players had ever made their first career plate appearance against the Unit.

None of them even hit a fair ball.

Well, so much for that.

On the first pitch thrown to him in his big-league career, Monday night at Yankee Stadium, Marcus Thames hit a home run. Off Randy Johnson.

Not even on an X Box. In real life.

He was the second Yankee in history to homer in his first career plate appearance (joining John Miller, who did it Sept. 11, 1966). He was the first Yankee ever to homer on the first pitch he saw. And he did it against the Biggest Unit.

No wonder Thames told the Newark Star Ledger's Lawrence Rocca afterward that he couldn't bring himself to get up out of the chair in front of his locker. Except maybe to watch the only shows on television that could provide documentary proof that he'd really just done what he'd done.

"I'm just going to sit in it a minute," Thames said, "get up and call everybody, and go home and watch SportsCenter and Baseball Tonight all night. ... I'm going to watch it over and over and over."

Mystery slugger of the week
Then again, you never know who you might see hit a home run these days. Like Miguel Batista, for instance.

	Batista

Let's review, first off, the distinguished offensive career of the distinguished Diamondbacks author-hurler. In 1997 and '98, Batista kicked off his career by going 0 for 40. Then, on May 24, 1999, he ended that 0-fer -- by (of all things) hitting a home run.

Asked then what went through his mind as he rounded the bases, Batista replied: "I thought, 'Now I know how Mark McGwire feels -- every other day.' "

Batista then went on to hit .200 that year (7 for 35), only to have his offensive eruption halted by a banishment to Kansas City. So it's understandable that, over the last three years, he'd reverted back to an .098 hitter (5 for 51, with no extra-base hits). Then, of course, he abruptly went deep again June 2, against the Dodgers.

"You can't explain it," Batista told the Arizona Daily Star's Jack Magruder. "It's like a comet. It happens once every four or five years."

Fan friendliness of the week
A funny thing happened to White Sox first baseman Paul Konerko last Wednesday as he set up in foul territory in short right field to catch a foul pop-up by Chuck Knoblauch.

Konerko thought he was closing in on the wall. Instead, he was closing in on another human being with a glove who didn't happen to be one of his teammates.

Little did he know it was a girl wearing a glove, who had hopped out of her box seat onto the warning track to try to snare herself a prized souvenir.

"I picked up something out of the corner of my eye, and I was thinking she, I guess, was the wall," Konerko told the Chicago Tribune's Fred Mitchell. "I was kind of bracing to make a play up against the fence. I caught the ball and then I could see her. I don't know. I guess she was trying to call me off."

The girl was then escorted out of harm's (and Konerko's) way. And a regular old ball game resumed. But Konerko sure hadn't heard the end of it.

"The worst part was that I thought I heard a couple of guys on my team saying, 'Let her take it,' " Konerko said. "I think if I had let it go, she would have caught it. She was right underneath that ball. The umpire (Tim McClelland) said: 'I thought she called you off on that ball.' I said: 'No, I called her off.' "

Dog days of the week
Think it's easy being the manager of a team that's gone 10-22 over the last five weeks? Ask Padres manager Bruce Bochy, a man who can make that claim.

Bochy was asked last week by the San Diego Union Tribune's Tim Sullivan: "How do you deal with the frustration? Do you go home and kick the dog?"

"I'm on my third dog this season," Bochy quipped.

Box score lines of the week

"I think I may have to go back to the drawing board," Dempster said, after allowing more earned runs in four innings than he gave up all last July (eight, in six starts). "I need to come up with a few adjustments to fix the horse (bleep) performance I gave tonight."

Asked what he was thinking after giving Park the quickest hook of his career, Texas manager Jerry Narron replied: "I'm just trying to figure out how we're going to get 27 outs."

Gift certificate of the week
You think the pressure is off Pirates scouting director Ed Creech, just because he's finally finished making the first pick in the June draft last week (Ball State right-hander Bryan Bullington)? Guess again.

"The draft is a scouting director's Christmas," Creech told the Beaver County Times' John Perrotto. "And having the No. 1 pick means you get to open your presents first. But Christmas is over -- and now the credit-card bill comes due."

Bobblehead of the week
If Bobblehead Day was just as simple as cranking out a bunch of dolls with springs, opening the gates and raking in the money, teams would hold one every day. But clearly, Bobblehead Day is getting more complicated all the time.

There are those Tampa Bay Devil Rays, who had to cancel Jason Tyner Bobblehead Day because of technical difficulties (i..e., sending Tyner to the minors). Then they had to announce that Sept. 8 will be Steve Cox Bobblehead Day instead of Toby Hall Bobblehead Day, due to identical technical difficulties.

But even for the kings of the bobbleheads, the Twins, Bobblehead Day last weekend turned out to be trickier than they'd originally figured.

	Mientkiewicz

It was Doug Mientkiewicz Bobblehead Day last Sunday. And it was hard not to notice that Mientkiewicz's bobblehead was a little different than all its predecessors -- because the bobble was blowing a bubble. And just try to pronounce that six times fast.

So what's up with that?

Well, the bubble simply honors one of the great gum-chomping glove men of all time -- a skill Mientkiewicz has honed to such perfection that teammate Denny Hocking says it has made him a multi-faceted legend.

"This is a true story," Hocking told the St. Paul Pioneer Press' Ray Richardson. "A ground ball comes to Doug. I'm not sure if the rest of the guys saw this, but his bubble gum flies out of his mouth. He grabs it with his bare hand, puts it back in his mouth, fields the ball with his glove and then flips to the pitcher. I guess that shows how cool he is."

Or maybe, said manager Ron Gardenhire, it shows something else.

"He's got a Gold Glove, so you can't argue too much about it," Gardenhire said. "It only means that he can walk and chew gum at the same time."

It turns out, though, that the bubble-blowing version wasn't the original Mientkiewicz bobblehead. Mientkiewicz made them scrap that one -- after he saw it for the first time.

"It wasn't my idea," Mientkiewicz told the Miami Herald. "The first doll didn't look anything like me. It was dark, and they had me throwing left-handed.

"You would think these people would pay attention to what you did for three years. The first doll, I looked like Torii Hunter."

Not that Torii Hunter isn't a good-looking bobbleheaded kind of guy or anything. But Hunter, of course, is black. And Mientkiewicz isn't.

Sleepyheads of the week
The roar of the crowd at Comiskey Park last Saturday night was replaced by the snore of the crowd.

Yes, speaking of sensational baseball promotions, it was that long-awaited stroke of brilliance from White Sox marketing genius Rob Gallas, Sleepover Night.

So 250 people paid 250 bucks apiece (proceeds to charity) for the right to go to a Sox-Expos game Saturday night, hang around for pizza and a midnight showing of "The Natural," sleep in the outfield, shower in the Bill Veeck memorial outfield shower (clothed, naturally), get breakfast at the park and stick around for the Sunday afternoon game.

Try as we might -- and try as our readers might -- the White Sox never did listen to us and get around to inviting Sleepy Floyd, Ben Sheets, Esteban Yawn, Ray Knight or Rick Camp. But they did send former GM Roland Hemond around in a night shirt and night hat to tuck every one in.

And reliever Kelly Wunsch did hang out in the outfield with a few sleepyheads for a while after the game. And after the movie, the Sox did show a video of Wunsch, Ray Durham, Tony Graffanino and a bunch of players wishing everyone good night.

Those attending reported that this was one of the great moments in baseball's promotional history for many reasons. But as MLB.com's Jerry Greenfield reported, not the least of those reasons was that the bullpens and dugouts were open for visitation. So our pajama partygoers figured out in a hurry they could pick up the phone and call the bullpen any time they wanted.

"Get the number for the phone," said one guy. "Whenever we want a pitching change, we can just call it in."

Injury of the week
With interleague play starting up and the Giants visiting Yankee Stadium for the first time in 40 years, you could have anticipated that a player might get lost on the way to The Stadium last weekend.

The upset was: It was a Yankee who got lost, not a Giant.

And getting on the wrong subway train didn't even turn out to be the worst part of Juan Rivera's day.

After arriving late, the rookie right fielder hustled out to the outfield to take some fungoes during batting practice -- and ran into a maintenance truck. He has a slight fracture in his kneecap and now finds himself riding the DL train.

"It was a shoulda-stayed-in-bed day for him," said Joe Torre, poetically.

Trickster of the week
With Fox televising last Saturday's Reds-Angels game regionally, Reds first baseman Sean Casey agreed to wear one of those mini-microphones during the game. Which got Casey to thinking.

"Hey," he told the Dayton Daily News' Hal McCoy, "maybe I can tell the baserunners that I'm miked and get them to talking -- and we can pick 'em off."

1-D visionary of the week
It's a wise man who knows what he is in life and what he isn't.

Jeremy Giambi was asked by our friend, Jerry Beach, of e-sportsnation.com, whether he was offended by Oakland GM Billy Beane's comment that one reason he traded Giambi to the Phillies was that he was a one-dimensional player.

"I guess," Giambi said, "it's better to be one-dimensional than no-dimensional."

Burglars of the week
Stop the presses. Interrupt our normal programming. The Red Sox stole four bases in a game Monday.

Asked by the Boston Globe's Gordon Edes the last time that happened, coach Mike Stanley replied: "1927?"

Good try. But it turned out it was only (gulp) Aug. 5, 1996. When Stanley stole one of those four bases himself.

Whatever, here's how long ago that was: Rickey Henderson has stolen 210 bases all by himself since then.

This eruption of Red Sox thunder on the bases was kicked off by none other than catcher Jason Varitek, whose previous stolen base had hit the box scores a mere two years earlier. That gives Varitek five steals in 470 games. But who's counting?

"I've got a long way to go," Varitek said. "But my career goal is to catch Rickey.

"Hey," he claimed, "I've been working on my speed game the last couple of days. A bunt single yesterday, and the steal tonight. The power game can come later on in the season."

Grand slammer of the week
There have been some unlikely players to hit three grand slams in one season, we're sure. But none have been any more unlikely than Angels slambino David Eckstein.

	Eckstein

After his latest slam into the first row Sunday, Eckstein is up to three slams this year -- and one homer of any other variety. (He's the first player in history, according to SABR's David Vincent, to hit three slams in his first four home runs of a season.)

At an alleged 5-foot-8, 170 pounds, Eckstein's normal claim to fame is buzzing around the yard as one of the great dirtball heroes of his time. So he's one home run hero who isn't going to have to worry about those steroid questions.

"Maybe if I start hitting them 20 rows up, then you can start questioning me about that," said Eckstein, who hasn't even had a home run reach the second row this year.

"I just can't say enough about how that guy plays the game," Darin Erstad told the Los Angeles Times' Chris Foster. "The only thing I don't like is there are no baserunners left when I get up."

Twenty-is-plenty game of the week
The Twins got even last week for a whole lot of bludgeonings by the Indians over the years -- by squashing their pals from Cleveland, 23-2.

The Twins became the first Indians opponent in 66 years to get 25 hits in a game. The Indians became the first team in this millennium to give up 20 runs twice in the same season. The Twins had four different players get four hits apiece. And it would have been 23-0 if Jim Thome hadn't homered twice.

If you'll check the box score, you'll note it was only a 3-1 game when Cleveland starter Ryan Drese departed. Then, however, on came the bullpen to give up 18 runs, plus two charged to Drese. Yikes.

Among the relievers contributing to that wipeout was Mark Wohlers, who gave up five runs in a third of an inning. Little did Wohlers know that when he forgot his MLB ID card that day and almost wasn't allowed to enter the Metrodome, that would have been a good thing.

Asked if he had any problems getting into the ballpark the next day, Wohlers chuckled: "They rolled out the red carpet -- and had a golf cart waiting for me."

Top 10 list of the week
With steroid insanity on the rise, we bring back David Hill and Jim Sundra, from the always-entertaining Baltimore baseball magazine, "Outside Pitch," to reveal the ...

Top 10 Signs Your Teammate Is On Steroids

10: There's a tibia bone in the corner of the shower.
9: Demands separate per diem for each bicep.
8: Hits a home run over the right field fence at Yankee Stadium -- and he was playing at Shea.
7: Really excited about the prospect of an expansion team in Monterrey.
6: Uses an overweight groupie as a medicine ball.
5: Orders Buffalo wings at Hooters in "doses."
4: Threatens to start new union: Players On Steroids.
3: Every time he signs an autograph he mutters, "Now, where's my prescription?"
2: Signs Nike endorsement deal for their new line of 13-toe spikes.
1: He goes on the DL to have breast-reduction surgery.

Lettermanism of the week